Polish software specialist Tomek Wawrzyczek was pleasantly surprised when he received a 50-centimetre (20-inch) tree seedling in the post.

He promptly planted it in his garden but still has no clue who sent it.

“Who was the kind soul who sent me a seedling? Because I don’t know whom to thank,” he wrote recently on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

No one has confessed to the unusual mail to date, but from the packaging, Wawrzyczek, 43, learnt it was part of a citizen’s initiative in which 61,000 free seedlings were sent across Poland.

Launched by marketing executive Jacek Powalka, 36, the so-called PioSeki online initiative let anyone order up to two free maple, beech, oak or spruce seedlings — one to keep and one to give a friend.

Powalka’s goal was to inspire people to do some good, be it by improving the environment or otherwise, he told AFP.

The idea for the project was first sown on a “beautiful, sunny Saturday morning” in 2007 after Powalka set off to the nursery for flowers but returned with a European variety of sycamore tree seedlings.

“I decided that that year rather than flowers for my balcony, I’d spend the money on trees” for the neighborhood’s overgrown residential square, said Powalka, whose family has a long history of social activism.

He ended up turning the nondescript unused space into a park, making headlines in Poland.

Neighbours helped with planting and chipped in on landscaping plans. The square became a site for community events like summertime starlight film screenings.

— ‘Shame not to spread such a fantastic thing’ —

' --------------------------------------------------

With the success of the neighborhood park, Powalka thought it would be “a shame to not spread such a fantastic thing to all of Poland,” so he took tree-planting to a national level this May.Through the PioSeki campaign, Powalka strove to nudge Poles into improving their communities — such as sprucing up areas too small to interest local officials — rather than relying on the government.

“There are fragments like a sidewalk curb with a plot of grass: it’s a place that will always just be a piece of sidewalk but it could have been a beautiful spot for a tree,” Powalka told AFP.

The send-a-seedling campaign cost a total of 560,000 zloty (130,000 euros, $160,000) and was sponsored by several companies, including Powalka’s own postal-service employer and co-organised by Polish public radio.

It drew interest not only from individual Poles but also schools, hospitals and municipalities, even prompting nurseries and national parks to offer to donate seedlings for round two.

And London’s large Polish community has asked to take part next time. While the project began as a one-off, Powalka is mulling over plans for a possible sequel next season.

Greenpeace Poland director Maciej Muskat described the campaign as a breath of fresh air.

“The fact that this wasn’t just a matter of sending out emails or signing petitions, which is sort of the standard, but it was tied rather to planting actual trees is a kind of novelty, and I strongly applaud the act,” he said.

Krakow resident Jakub Cholewka, a 30-year-old translator who ordered a beech for himself and a maple for his wife, believed the initiative had the potential to prod Poles into planting more seedlings.

“I certainly won’t stop at the trees I got through the campaign,” he said.

Frank Serpico: “The Human Race Has Been Sold Out”

Serpico is a retired American New York City Police Department officer who is known for testifying against police corruption in 1971. He is the co-author of Serpico: The Classic Story of the Cop Who Couldn’t Be Bought.http://frankserpico.blogspot.com/

Let me get this straight . . . …
We’re going to be “gifted” with a health care Plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t,
Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes,
for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect,
by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,
and financed by a country that’s broke!!!!!
What the hell could possibly go wrong?

U.S. researchers say they have discovered high concentrations of lead in the Indian Ocean despite leaded gasoline having been slowly phased out worldwide.

While leaded gasoline usage has decreased drastically in the last few decades, lead is still pervasive in the environment, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported.

MIT ocean geochemist Ed Boyle has been tracking lead and other trace elements in Earth’s oceans for the past 30 years and recently has analyzed water and coral samples from the Indian Ocean, using the coral to trace the history of anthropogenic lead over the last 50 years.

Lead concentrations in the Indian Ocean are now higher than in the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans, Boyle and students from MIT’s Trace Metal Group said.

One reason, Boyle said, could be that Asian and African countries were behind North America and Europe both in industrialization and then in phasing out leaded gasoline.

The Indian Ocean has had less time than the Atlantic and Pacific to dissipate lead pollution as a result, he said.

Reconstructing a history of lead in the Indian Ocean over the last 50 years, the researchers found lead levels began to increase in the mid-1970s, consistent with the region’s pattern of industrialization and leaded gasoline use.

“It is an indication of the human footprint on the planet that essentially all the lead in the oceans now is from human activities,” Boyle said in an MIT release. “It’s very hard to find a trace of the lead that’s there naturally.”

Today, 185 countries have stopped using leaded gasoline.

Studies have shown lead can cause neurological and cardiovascular damage.

Cartoon of main geological events recorded at Gorst, Wash., from pre-earthquake conditions (a), to a tsunami that deposited material (b), through landslide debris flow (c). The depiction appears in a study from the June 2012 issue of the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
CREDIT: Maria E. Martin Arcos

A new word of caution for Seattleites: The big quake you’ve been waiting for could be even bigger than expected.

The Seattle Fault, a zone of east-west thrust faults under the Puget Sound and Seattle, last ruptured in a magnitude-7.0 to -7.5 earthquake about 1,100 years ago. It’s due for another one, but scientists don’t know when that might happen.

Whenever it does, the quake — and ensuing hazards like landslides or a tsunami — could be larger and affect a wider area than scientists had calculated, according to recent research from the University of Washington.

“Before, it looked like the Seattle Fault had a very narrow zone that was deformed during the last major earthquake, but this evidence shows that the zone of deformation was actually several kilometers wider,” said Maria Martin Arcos, a geologist with the engineering firm AMEC, who completed the research while she was a doctoral student at the University of Washington.

“This also shows that when you think about an earthquake, you also have to think about and plan for these other things, like landslides and tsunamis, that can come along with it,” Arcos told OurAmazingPlanet.

Triple threat

Native American oral legends recount a major earthquake near Seattle around A.D. 900-930, but those are the only human records of the event. To learn more about the prehistoric quake — and what the Seattle Fault might have in store for future ruptures — researchers have had to dig into the geologic record.

Arcos looked for evidence in a coastal marsh near Gorst, Wash. Geophysical models of the fault predicted that the prehistoric quake didn’t deform this area, but Arcos discovered that parts of the marsh had been lifted about 10 feet (3 meters) during the quake.

She found a layer of big cedar trunks, forest peat and seeds and leaves from land plants directly on top of a layer full of clams, mussels and mud. Together, the two layers are evidence that the quake suddenly lifted land in an intertidal zone, turning it into a forested zone.

Also, a sandy layer deposited by a tsunami and a layer of forest turf torn up during a landslide showed that at least two violent events accompanied the major earthquake, Arcos said.

Her research indicates that a zone 6 to 7 miles (10 to 12 kilometers) wide could be deformed in a future quake with a magnitude up to 7.5. Previous estimates showed the danger zone was only about 4 to 5 miles (7 to 8 km) wide. [Video: What Earthquake ‘Magnitude’ Means]

“We know where most of the big plate boundary faults are, and we have some ideas as to how they behave. But for these smaller faults, we don’t really know where all of them are or how all of them behave,” Arcos said. “This fault runs right under the city of Seattle, and we’re still finding new things almost every year.”

Arcos’ research is detailed in the June 2012 issue of the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter@OAPlanet. We’re also onFacebookand Google+.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.3 quake struck a remote region of western China, close to the Kazakhstan border, early on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.5, struck at 5:07 a.m. on Saturday (2107 GMT on Friday), and was centered 94 miles southwest of the town of Shihezi in Xinjiang province.

“It’s a very quiet, remote, mountainous area that is sparsely populated. A the moment we have no report of any casualty or damage but we are watching closely,” USGS Geophysicist Chen Shengzao told Reuters by telephone from Golden, Colorado.

The USGS said the quake was very shallow, only 6.1 miles below the Earth’s surface. Chen said that because of its magnitude and very shallow depth, the quake would have been widely felt.

A strong earthquake jolted China’s far-western frontier early Saturday, shaking buildings and cutting off electricity in the remote mountainous area and injuring at least 17 people. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake, which hit China’s Xinjiang region, at magnitude-6.3, while China’s Earthquake Networks Center put it at 6.6. The Xinjiang regional government reported no deaths but said 17 people were injured. Most of the victims were tourists. Residents near the epicenter were shaken out of bed in pre-dawn darkness and some households lost electricity. The quake toppled several buildings 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the west in the regional capital, Urumqi, that rescuers had been dispatched to the sparsely populated area to search for casualties. An official from the Xinjiang Earthquake Bureau said the quake was “strongly felt” in Urumqi. The man, who gave only his surname, Jian, said Urumqi residents rushed into the streets when the quake hit but returned home after 6 a.m.

Volcanic Activity

Mt Siple volcano in Antarctica might have become active and produced a steam plume recently detected on satellite imagery. The latest Smithsonian activity report mentions:
“Infrared imagery from the Metop satellite showed a possible rising steam plume from the area of Siple on 20 June. The imagery, as interpreted by Mark Drapes, indicated that the volcano was about -22 degrees Celsius, about 6 degrees warmer that the surrounding landscape, and the base of the plume was about -55 degrees Celsius.
Sources: Mark Drapes, personal communication, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)”

Kansas City’s current heat wave is suspected as the cause of two deaths, one of them a one-year-old boy.

The Kansas City Health Department announced Thursday that the county medical examiner is investigating the deaths of the child and a 60-year-old man as the first suspected heat-related deaths of the year.

No other [sic] details were available.

The metro area, along with eastern Kansas and all of Missouri, remains under an excessive heat warning expected to continue into next week.

Thursday’s high hit 106 at Charlie Wheeler Downtown Airport and 105 degrees at Kansas City International Airport. The heat index reached as high as 108, according to the National Weather Service.

Temperatures are expected to back off a little for the weekend, but not much. The lowest we can expect will be about 100 on Sunday.

After that, the forecast is more heat, and lots of it.

Bowman said temperatures will stop climbing for just a few days as the mass of hot, dry air that has settled on the central and southern plains region flattens and expands to the east. By Thursday of next week, he said, it should be built all the way back up past 100.

“It looks pretty brutal,” said Chris Bowman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pleasant Hill.

“For the next week, it doesn’t look like there’s any real relief.”

These are late summer weather patterns only seen in June once every five years or so, according to weather service.

The unseasonable heat is driving people all over the area to take precautions and seek shelter.

More than 275 people found relief Thursday at cooling stations opened by the Salvation Army and the YMCA of Greater Kansas City.

The Salvation Army’s eight community centers offer a place to cool off and a cold drink, and will remain open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. until the excessive heat warning is lifted. The Independence Crossroads location also offers cots to those who need a place to spend the night, and Salvation Army spokeswoman Amanda Waters said she expected at least 12 people to stay there Thursday night because of the heat.

The YMCA cooling stations will be open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

With the weekend forecast, North Kansas City’s centennial festival has changed its schedule and plans to bring in several cooling devices.

“We didn’t anticipate that the temperature would exceed the age of the city,” said Debbie Van Pelt-McEnroe, a spokeswoman for the festival committee.

The carnival will not open until 6 p.m. Friday, but will open at 1 p.m. Saturday. The city plans to provide two misting tents and a mobile, air-conditioned command post with paramedics. The fire station on Howell Street, the North Kansas City Library and the North Kansas City Community Center will be open for festival attendees who need to cool off.

Anyone braving the outdoors Friday or Saturday can expect a heat index between 105 and 110.

Bowman said temperatures will stop climbing for just a few days as the mass of hot, dry air that has settled on the central and southern plains region flattens and expands to the east. By Thursday of next week, he said, it should be built all the way back up.

An ozone alert issued for Kansas City Thursday will continue Friday. The alert, issued by the Mid-America Regional Council, warns of an unhealthy amount of ozone, or smog, in the air at ground level.

A lack of drenching rainfall could continue through much of the summer over Colorado and neighboring areas, adding to wildfire woes.

While there has been some thunderstorm activity of late in the region, not enough rain will fall over a broad enough area to significantly impact tinder-dry conditions.

In many cases the storms have brought and will continue to bring little or no rainfall in the weeks ahead.

The air over the region is much too dry to allow the rain falling at cloud level in the storm to reach the ground.

What happens is that the evaporating rain cools the air, which then races to the ground in the form of strong gusts. In turn, the gusty winds generated nearby from the storms fan the flames of existing fires, while lightning strikes from the storms threaten to start new fires.

According to Paul Pastelok, head of AccuWeather.com’s Long Range Experts, “It appears the zone of high pressure over the region now will last through much of July and could continue through much of August.”

Pastelok pointed out that some moisture will continue and may increase over the Southwest in general in the coming weeks, but it will tend to “go around” rather than through most of Colorado.

Pastelok is referring to the phenomenon known to locals as the monsoon, which brings more humid air up from Mexico, and produces thunderstorm activity.

“It is possible a non-monsoon feature with a more liberal amount of showers and thunderstorms may swing from Texas to New Mexico next week, but only the southern part of Colorado would be grazed,” Pastelok said.

Otherwise, the region will have to wait until the high pressure area breaks down or shifts position and shorter days with lower sun intensity assist with matters.

While temperatures will occasionally throttle back in coming weeks, the overall massive heat pump will remain in place over Colorado through the middle of summer.

Even in areas that manage to get a couple of rainfalls of 0.10 of an inch from one of the spotty thunderstorms the next week or so, long sun-filled days and evaporation rates of 0.25 to 0.50 of an inch per day will rapidly trump rainfall.

Nebraska National Guard crewmembers dump water from a Bambi bucket onto flames of the High Park fire, in Larimer County, Colo., on June 18, 2012.The National Guard/Flickr

The Daily Sentinel
An overflow crowd of at least 200 De Beque residents heard Thursday night they may be evacuated over the coming days to either Parachute or Palisade, all dependent on the mood of a growing wind-whipped wildfire which closed a smoky Interstate 70.

“I’ve never seen fire do some of things that we’ve seen this year,” Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey told the crowd. “It’s scary here.”

Growing more than tenfold from Wednesday, the 10,000-acre Pine Ridge Fire southwest of De Beque blew up Thursday as winds kicked up over the afternoon, spreading in all directions and coming within a stone’s throw of the westbound traffic lanes of I-70.

A 13-mile stretch of the highway from the Powderhorn exit to the De Beque exit was closed.

The Bureau of Land Management said it planned to map the blaze from the air overnight to get an accurate estimate of acreage burned.

While roughly 50 residents southeast of De Beque were evacuated Thursday afternoon and offered shelter at Palisade High School, Hilkey laid out an uncertain scenario for a possible mandatory evacuation of the entire town De Beque over the coming days. The sheriff said authorities were concerned today’s projected weather may push flames toward De Beque.

“If Interstate 70 is still closed, we’ll go down 45 1/2 Road to the De Beque Cutoff, to Highway 65 and to Grand Junction,” Hilkey said, adding evacuees would be directed to Palisade High School.

“If the fire jumps I-70 and reaches 45 1/2 Road, both of which would be closed, we’ll send people to Parachute,” Hilkey added, saying they’ve receive a commitment from Grand Valley High School to assist.

Hilkey said any evacuation notice will include phone calls from 911 dispatchers in Grand Junction, while some 206 such calls went out late Thursday afternoon to residences and business on the south side of De Beque, closer to I-70.

DeBeque, which registered a population of 504 in the 2010 census, also has other means of notifying residents.

“We have a siren and everyone in town can hear it clearly,” a woman yelled at Hilkey from the back of the De Beque Community Center Thursday night.

“We’ll build that into our contingency plan,” the sheriff replied.

Russell Long, division chief with the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management team, said a staff of 100 firefighters and support staff were on the ground, and the number of resources was growing.

“This is the same type of team they have on the Front Range right now,” Robertson said. “We’re trying to give you the best resources to work this fire, but we have to be patient.”

Long acknowledged the Pine Ridge blaze was in something of a “competition” for resources with the wildfires charring the Front Range.

Tanker planes were seen throughout Thursday making several passes around the blaze, while officials held out hope that a heavy-duty helicopter capable of dropping 1,500-gallon water bombs on the blaze might be available by Friday.

“We can do bucket drops in the (Colorado) river,” Robertson said. “Part of the reason we have to shut down I-70 is safety.”

Grand Valley Power officials announced late Thursday evening that they may de-energize power lines in the De Beque area should the fire advance toward those lines in order to keep firefighters safe, a move that would leave customers in the area without power for an extended period of time.

The power company said it is working with the incident commander on the fire to monitor it and has dispatched linemen to locations ahead of the fire so that they’re in position to de-energize the lines if it becomes necessary to do so.

In the event lines are de-energized, Grand Valley Power encourages customers to keep refrigerators and freezers closed to minimize the impacts an extended outage could have on food storage. Officials said they will keep customers informed about any action taken with the power lines.

Smyrna, TN: 113 (I’ve always thought this thermometer runs a bit hot, but if it is accurate, it ties the Tennessee all-time state record high from Perryville on August 9, 1930)

Columbia, SC (Owens Field): 110 (short period of record, 1 short of the South Carolina state record high)

Bowling Green, KY: 110 (June record high)

Rumor has it that Mount Leconte, TN got to 81 today, the first time they have ever been in the 80s. It will be interesting to see how warm Grandfather Mountain and Mount Mitchell were today. Grandfather Mountain’s warmest is 83 and I believe Mount Mitchell’s is 82.

Today certainly rivals what I used to consider the hottest day ever in the Southeast, August 21, 1983.

I’m looking forward to pouring over the local cooperative reports to see if any state record highs were tied or broken. I think there’s a chance in South Carolina and Tennessee. Someone in Georgia might have gotten close.

Most places in the Southeast will be within a degree or two of what we saw yesterday, some places hotter, others not as hot. So, we’ll take a run at some of these figures again Saturday.

By Jillian MacMath, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

People dealing with scorching temperatures stretched across the Midwest may get a break from the heat wave, but only at the expense of severe thunderstorms.

The storms slammed Illinois with 60-mph winds and heavy rain during the midday Friday and were racing along at nearly 80 mph across Indiana and Ohio, aiming toward West Virginia and western Pennsylvania Friday evening.

High winds from the storms have had a history of numerous power outages, downed trees and property damage.

The heat combining with the severe weather in the atmosphere could also create large hailstones the size of golf balls and frequent lightning strikes.

The storms will approach quickly. Be sure to seek shelter as soon as you hear thunder.

Gauhati Raging floodwaters fed by monsoon rains have inundated more than 2,000 villages in northeast India, killing at least 27 people and leaving hundreds of thousands more marooned Friday. The Indian air force was delivering food packages to people huddled on patches of dry land along with cattle and wild elephants. Rescuers were being dropped by helicopter into affected areas to help the stranded. About one million people have been forced to evacuate as the floods from the swollen Brahmaputra River – one of Asia’s largest – swamped 2,084 villages across most of Assam state, officials said. Officials have counted 27 people dead so far, but the toll is expected to be much higher as unconfirmed casualty reports mount. Telephone lines were knocked out and some train services were cancelled after their tracks were swamped by mud. As the floods soaked the Kaziranga game reserve east of Assam’s capital of Gauhati, motorists reported seeing a one-horned rhino fleeing along a busy highway. “We never thought the situation would turn this grim when the monsoon-fed rivers swelled a week ago,” said Nilomoni Sen Deka, an Assam government minister. Residents of Majuli – an 800-square-kilometre island in the middle of the Brahmaputra River – watched helplessly as the swirling, grey waters swallowed 50 villages and swept away their homes. “We are left with only the clothes we are wearing,” said 60-year-old Puniram Hazarika, one of about 75,000 island residents now camping in makeshift shelters of bamboo sticks and plastic tarps on top of a mud embankment. A herd of 70 endangered Asiatic elephants, which usually avoid humans, were grouped together nearby, Majuli island wildlife official Atul Das said. “The jumbos have not caused any harm, but we are keeping a close watch,” he said.

Radiation / Nuclear

TOKYO (Reuters) – Two prominent seismologists said on Tuesday that Japan is ignoring the safety lessons of last year’s Fukushima crisis and warned against restarting two reactors next month.

Japan has approved the restart of the two reactors at the Kansai Electric Power Ohi nuclear plant, northwest of Tokyo, despite mass public opposition.

They will be the first to come back on line after all reactors were shut following a massive earthquake and tsunami last March that caused the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl at Tokyo Electric Power’s Daiichi Fukushima plant.

Seismic modeling by Japan’s nuclear regulator did not properly take into account active fault lines near the Ohi plant, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist at Kobe University, told reporters.

“The stress tests and new safety guidelines for restarting nuclear power plants both allow for accidents at plants to occur,” Ishibashi told reporters. “Instead of making standards more strict, they both represent a severe setback in safety standards.”

Experts advising Japan’s nuclear industry had underestimated the seismic threat, Mitsuhisa Watanabe, a tectonic geomorphology professor at Toyo University, said at the same news conference.

After an earthquake in 2007 caused radiation leaks at reactors north of Tokyo, Ishibashi said Japan was at risk of a nuclear disaster following a large earthquake, a warning that proved prescient after Fukushima.

While it is impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen, Ishibashi said on Tuesday the magnitude 9 quake last year made it more likely “devastating” earthquakes would follow.

Climate Change

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2012) — A new study published today in Nature by authors from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and the Goethe University Frankfurt suggests that large parts of Africa’s savannas may well be forests by 2100. The study suggests that fertilization by atmospheric carbon dioxide is forcing increases in tree cover throughout Africa. A switch from savanna to forest occurs once a critical threshold of CO2 concentration is exceeded, yet each site has its own critical threshold. The implication is that each savanna will switch at different points in time, thereby reducing the risk that a synchronous shock to the earth system will emanate from savannas.

Tropical grasslands, savannas and forests, areas the authors call the savanna complex, are expected to respond sensitively to climate and atmospheric changes. This is because the main players, grasses and trees, differ fundamentally in their response to temperature, carbon dioxide supply and fire and are in an unrelenting struggle for the dominance of the savanna complex. The outcome of this struggle determines whether vast portions of the globe’s tropical and sub-tropical regions are covered with grasslands, savannas or forests. In the past such shifts in dominance have played out in slow motion, but the current wave of atmospheric changes has accelerated the potential rate of change.

Experimental studies have generally shown that plants do not show a large response to CO2 fertilization. “However, most of these studies were conducted in northern ecosystems or on commercially important species” explains Steven Higgins, lead author of the study from the Biodiodversity and Climate Reseach Centre and Goethe-University. “In fact, only one experimental study has investigated how savanna plants will respond to changing CO2 concentrations and this study showed that savanna trees were essentially CO2 starved under pre-industrial CO2 concentrations, and that their growth really starts taking off at the CO2 concentrations we are currently experiencing.“

The vegetation shifts that the Higgins and Scheiter study projects are an example of what some theorists call catastrophic regime shifts. Such catastrophic regime shifts can be triggered by small changes in the factors that regulate the system. These small changes set up a cascade of events that reinforce each other causing the system to change more and more rapidly. The study demonstrated that the savanna complex showed symptoms of catastrophic regime shifts. “The potential for regime shifts in a vegetation formation that covers such vast areas is what is making earth system scientists turn their attention to savannas” comments Higgins.

Knowing when such regime shifts will occur is critical for anticipating change. This study discovered that locations where the temperature rise associated with climate change occurs rapidly, for example in the center of southern Africa, are projected to switch later to forest as the high rate of temperature increase allows the savanna grasses to remain competitive for longer in the face of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. This means that even though a single location may experience its catastrophic regime shift, the vegetation change when averaged over a region will be smoother. Such gradual transitions in regional vegetation patterns will reduce the potential for shocks to the earth system. “While this may seem reassuring, we have to bear in mind that these changes are still rapid when viewed on geological time scales”, says Higgins.

The practical implications of the study are far reaching. For example, the study identified a belt that spans northern central Africa where fire suppression would encourage savannas to transition to forests. “So if you wanted to sequester carbon as part of a carbon mitigation action, this is where you should do it” explained Higgins “with the caveat that where this will work is shifting as atmospheric conditions change.” A worrying implication is that the grasslands and open savannas of Africa, areas with unique floras and faunas, are set to be replaced by closed savannas or forests. Hence it appears that atmospheric change represents a major threat to systems that are already threatened by over-grazing, plantation forestry and crop production.

M2.4 Solar Flare & CME’s June 28-29, 2012

Newly numbered Active Region 11513 unleashed an Impulsive M2.4 Solar Flare yesterday, this blast was followed up with several halo coronal mass ejection’s (CME’s) all of which are not earth directed. Solar activity is now picking up with impulsive C-Class flares while the Xray background increases strongly as this new active region shows sign of growth and magnetic complexity.

Saturn’s hazy Titan is now on the short list of moons that likely harbor a subsurface ocean of water, based on new findings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

As Titan travels around Saturn during its 16-day elliptical orbits, it gets rhythmically squeezed by the gravitational pull of the giant planet — an effect known as tidal flexing (see video below.) If the moon were mostly composed of rock, the flexing would be in the neighborhood of around 3 feet (1 meter.) But based on measurements taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, Titan exhibits much more intense flexing — ten times more, in fact, as much as 30 feet (10 meters) — indicating that it’s not entirely solid at all.

Instead, Cassini scientists estimate that there’s a moon-wide ocean of liquid water beneath the frozen crust of Titan, possibly sandwiched between layers of ice or rock.

“Short of being able to drill on Titan’s surface, the gravity measurements provide the best data we have of Titan’s internal structure.”

– Sami Asmar, Cassini team member at JPL

“Cassini’s detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth,” said Luciano Iess, the paper’s lead author and a Cassini team member at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. “The search for water is an important goal in solar system exploration, and now we’ve spotted another place where it is abundant.”

Although liquid water is a necessity for the development of life, the presence of it alone does not guarantee that alien organisms are swimming around in a Titanic underground ocean. It’s thought that water must be in contact with rock in order to create the necessary building blocks of life, and as yet it’s not known what situations may exist around Titan’s inner sea. But the presence of such an ocean — possibly containing trace amounts of ammonia – would help explain how methane gets replenished into the moon’s thick atmosphere.

“The presence of a liquid water layer in Titan is important because we want to understand how methane is stored in Titan’s interior and how it may outgas to the surface,” said Jonathan Lunine, a Cassini team member at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. “This is important because everything that is unique about Titan derives from the presence of abundant methane, yet the methane in the atmosphere is unstable and will be destroyed on geologically short timescales.”

China says it will invest $81 million to build a national network to monitor movement in the Earth’s crust and for other Earth sciences in the next four years.

The program will use more than 3,000 technicians to build a three-dimensional and dynamic “geodetic” network with high precision, the country’s National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation announced Tuesday.

The national geodetic network aims to build 360 Global Positioning System reference stations and a satellite-geodesy control network consisting of 4,500 control points, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The network will ensure people can get timely geodetic information for any point in the country’s land area, surveying administration Deputy Directory Li Weisen said.

China lags behind developed countries in terms of surveying and mapping technologies.

While the United States’ “geoid” determination network can reach an accuracy of 1 inch, China can only determine geoid at an accuracy of 1 foot in its eastern part and 2 feet in its western region, Xinhua said.

On Friday, however, Tina Stall with the National Weather Service said there was no visible chaff in the area at the time the noise was reported.

The mysterious sound had both residents and experts scratching their heads. Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist Kristoffer Walker said he felt it too, and looked into microphones recorded from MCAS Miramar.

Evidence from his research revealed an answer.

“There was indeed an atmospheric tremor, or ‘skyquake,'” Walker said. “The likely cause of these ‘skyquakes’ is routine military activity very far off the coast of San Diego (at least 50 miles away) in zones that are designated military training zones.”

Typically, we don’t hear these “skyquakes.” But when the wind reaches speeds of over 100 miles per hour, the sound can reach parts of San Diego, Walker said.

A spokesperson from Camp Pendleton said Marines are not training with anything unusual. They often train with various military equipment and will be training with tanks both Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday evening, the U.S. Naval Air Forces official Facebook page posted the following message regarding the mysterious boom heard around San Diego:

“San Diego, it looks like the boom that was heard and felt today was likely due to some aircraft associated with the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) family day cruise. As part of a flight demonstration two F/A-18 aircraft went supersonic about 35 miles off the coast. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. — LT Aaron Kakiel, media officer.”

So, according to the Navy, it appears Friday’s San Diego boom mystery has finally been solved.

Biological Hazards / Wildlife / Hazmat

AN OUTBREAK of American Foulbrood, a disease affecting colonies of honeybees, has been found in an apiary in Inverness-shire.

The disease was confirmed following laboratory diagnosis by Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture. Other outbreaks of AFB have previously been reported – and dealt with – in this area over the last three years.

The movement of bees and related equipment into or out of the affected apiary is prohibited. As there is no permitted treatment for the disease in the UK, the infected hive will be destroyed. There are no risks to public health from AFB and no implications for the quality and safety of honey.

Bee farmers and beekeepers are being urged to be vigilant for signs of the disease, to maintain good husbandry practices and to notify any suspicion of disease to BeesMailbox@scotland.gsi.gov.uk. In order to assist Scottish Government Bee Inspectors to control this and other diseases, beekeepers are urged to register on BeeBase, the national bee database.

Three people have been sent to the hospital for bee stings after a swarm invaded a park in Huntington Park Friday. According to Sheriff’s officials, there were about 75 people at Miles Park when the bees descended around 3 p.m. Witnesses say the bees started flying out of the trees and attacking people. Three people were hospitalized with about 50 to 75 stings each. They are expected to survive. The park has been closed as bee experts and Sheriff’s officials are on scene to diffuse the swarm.

Twenty children and five adults were taken to hospital Friday afternoon after a chemical was released in a school’s ventilation system in St. Vital. Emergency officials were called to Victor Mager School just before noon. Some of the victims who suffered from the fumes remain in hospital and are being assessed for respiratory damage. Hospital officials said they believe some people may suffer from inhalation of an air conditioning coolant. Hassa Anbabar, who was admitted to the hospital, said she realized something was wrong when she smelled something different in the air “It was a little scary seeing all the people freaked,” said Anbabar. “But it was okay once we knew everyone was going to be okay.” The entire school was cleared, and about 20 students between the ages of 10 and 12 were taken to the hospital in a medical bus along with handful of staff members. Robyn McLeod, who’s daughter was one of the children hospitalized said she was “freaking out” and almost crying. McLeod’s daughter said the smell gave her a stomach ache. After the evacuation, everyone else in the school waited at a nearby high school. School officials are investigating what happened, they said they suspect the problem started on the roof. “It was probably an air conditioning unit on the school where a fuse burned out and caused an electrical short in the unit, and some smoke entered the building,” said Terry Borys, superintendent of Louis Riel School Division. Officials are concerned students and staff may have some respiratory damage, but at this point it does not appear that anyone was seriously injured. A number of those taken to hospital have been sent home, others will have to stay overnight for observation.

Bubbling has been noticed in the water in the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas. Parish officials have determined that this bubbling is caused by a release of natural gas and not “swamp gas”.

The origin of the gas is presently unknown. Potential causes could perhaps be a pipeline leak or a potential leak from an adjacent storage cavern. Presently, it has not been established that this gas is a residual gas leak from the Gulf South incident of 2003-2004.

Government officials including the LA Department of Natural Resources, LA State Police, LA Department of Environmental Quality, Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, and the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office are continuously working with local industry to determine the origin of the leak. The immediate task at hand is to isolate the problem so that repair and mitigation can commence to resolve the problem.

Daily readings are being taken and recorded from all known bubbling locations for ignition risk. At present time, no readings have suggested any ignition risk; therefore, all waterways remain open to boat traffic. If readings change, waterways may be closed for a period of time.

If anyone has information on bubbling locations or about a potential origin of the gas, please contact the Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at (985) 369-7386.

In the sandy desert grasslands of Namibia in southern Africa, mysterious bare spots known as “fairy circles” will form and then disappear years later for no reason anyone can determine. A new look at these strange patterns doesn’t solve the wistful mystery but at least reveals that the largest of the circles can linger for a lifetime.

Small fairy circles stick around an average of 24 years, while larger ones can exist as long as 75 years, according to research detailed today (June 27) in the journal PLoS ONE. Still, the study sheds little light on why the circles form, persist and then vanish into the landscape after decades.

“The why question is very difficult,” said study researcher Walter Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University. “There are a number of hypotheses on the table, and the evidence for none of them is convincing.” [See Photos of Fairy Circles]

Circles of life (and death)

Tschinkel grew interested in fairy circles during a 2005 safari to NamibRand Nature Reserve in southwest Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It was his first experience with the round clearings, tens of thousands of which expose the red sandy soil in the area. A short time after the circles form, a tall ring of grass grows around the border, highlighting the bare area.

Few researchers have studied fairy circles, in part because of their remoteness, 111 miles (180 km) from the nearest village. It’s an arid landscape where springbok, ostriches, leopards and other large animals roam, Tschinkel told LIveScience.

At first glance, Tschinkel assumed the circles marked underground nests of harvester termites. But digs have shown no evidence of termite nests under fairy circles. Other explanations, such as differences in soil nutrients or the death of seedlings by toxic vapors from the ground, have likewise failed to hold up to study.

In fact, little was known even about the life cycle of the circles, Tschinkel said. With the help of the nature reserve’s staff, satellite images and aerial photos, he set out to change that. By comparing satellite images from 2004 and 2008, he found that circles are quite stable, popping up at nearly their full size, or growing quickly to full size once they get started. The smallest are about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter, while the largest can be almost 40 feet (12 m) across. Winds scour the bare areas of soil, turning them into slight depressions. Eventually plants move back in, recolonizing the circles and leaving only slightly indented “ghost circles” behind.

Assuming that the overall number of fairy circles on the landscape is fairly steady, Tschinkel used the satellite photos to look at how quickly the circles go from birth to maturity to revegetation. That yielded rough estimates of the circles’ life spans. Most probably exist for 30 to 60 years, Tschinkel said.

Persisting mystery

Tschinkel was able to bolster these estimates thanks to a fundraising effort by the Namib Rand Nature Reserve, which sells sponsorships to fairy circles. The sponsored circles are marked with a ceramic plate, and their GPS coordinates are recorded. Over the 10 years of the sponsorship program, staff members have checked on the status of the sold circles. Their data yielded similar age ranges for fairy circles as the satellite images did, Tschinkel found.

He also determined that the circles form only on sandy soil with minimal stoniness, and that they don’t form on shifting dunes or alluvial fans, where sands are deposited by water.

Some of Tschinkel’s experiments are still ongoing, but so far, they’ve generated no leads on the circles’ origins. Tschinkel suspects the circles are the product of some form of natural self-organization by plants.

“There are some mathematical models that are based on the idea that plants can withdraw resources toward themselves, which has a positive feedback on plant growth where they’re located, but it has a negative effect on plants at a greater distance,” he said.

Computer models based on this math can generate landscapes that look a bit like the fairy circle fields of Namibia, he said. But even if that hypothesis is on the right track, it doesn’t explain how the plants are creating this pattern, not when hoarding soil nutrients and some other possible factors have already been ruled out.

Around 80,000 customers of Indiana Michigan Power either suffered power outages or remained without electricity, hours after a powerful storm rolled through the Fort Wayne area. According to a news release from I&M, those without power might have to do without for an extended period, as well, with the release stating: “Due to the large area affected by the storm and the severity of damage, those affected by the storm should prepare for the possibility of a prolonged restoration process.” A severe thunderstorm watch continues through 7 p.m. for Allen, Huntington, Whitley, Noble, Wells and Adams counties. I&M would work to assess the damage before sending crews to fix power lines, I&M community relations director Sarah Bodner said, adding that many people should expect to be without power for at least a day. “People should prepare for a prolonged outage,” she said. “Power’s not coming back on tonight.” As vendors were setting up Friday afternoon for the weekly Historic Main Street Farmers Market, their eyes were on the furiously darkening sky. “That’s it,” said one woman setting up as she immediately started to pull down her tent.

Within moments, Main Street was covered in darkness as dirt flew in every direction and trees snapped. A black power line hung over West Main Street just east of the Carole Lombard Bridge. Fort Wayne Police officers were reporting down trees on streets including Clinton Street and Scott Road south of Illinois Road. Carroll east of Johnson and Carroll north of Johnson was also blocked by a down tree. Downtown, people scrambled indoors to get away from flying dust and debris, and powerful gusts tore large plates of sheet metal from the side of the Anthony Wayne Building, which is under renovation. “The wind was pretty much ripping and roaring through downtown,” said Michael Barranda, a lawyer who works in the 1st Source Banking Center at 200 E. Main St. “I looked out my blinds and saw pieces of sheet metal flying off the Anthony Wayne Building two at a time,” he said. “There were a bunch of us huddled together in the office hoping nobody got hurt.” Witnesses said the high winds tore down at least one billboard on Illinois Road and felled countless trees, blocking streets in many Fort Wayne neighborhoods. Traffic was at a near-standstill on Hillegas Road and Spy Run Avenue shortly after the storm ripped through town, other witnesses reported on Twitter.

Two left-hand lanes of Spy Run near Tennessee Avenue were blocked by downed trees earlier this afternoon. Every traffic signal on Hillegas from West Coliseum Boulevard south to West State Boulevard was knocked offline. Interstate 69 was closed at the 99 mile marker just north of the General Motors Fort Wayne Assembly plant on the city’s southwest end but had reopened by about 4:30 p.m. The National Weather Service reported wind speeds of 63 mph with gusts up to 91 mph at 3:05 p.m. The weather-radio transmitter at Fort Wayne International Airport was knocked off the air at about the same time the storm came through. According to weather service precipitation maps, between a third of an inch and half an inch of rain fell during the brief but powerful storm. Temperature dropped from 91 degrees at 2 p.m. to 68 degrees at 4 p.m., according to the weather service. Wind was so powerful that some people said their cars were almost uncontrollable in the wind. In restaurants and stores around the city, people huddled indoors as the storm rolled through. Many of Fort Wayne’s radio stations were knocked off the air by the storm.

Environmental

The high reactivity of green rust is the reason it could be so much help in cleaning up polluted sites. The rust reduces elements like chromium, uranium and selenium, significantly reducing their solubility and mobility in the environment, and in some cases absorbing them into the rust’s molecular structure.

A rare kind of mineral which scientists hope could be used to remove toxic metals and radioactive species from the environment played a similar, crucial role early in Earth’s history. Research carried out by an international team of leading biogeochemists suggests for the first time that ‘green rust’ was likely widespread in ancient oceans and may have played a vital role in the creation of our early atmosphere.

Led by Newcastle University, UK, the study shows that during the Precambrian period, green rust ‘scavenged’ heavy metals such as nickel out of the water. Nickel availability is linked to the production of methane by anaerobic organisms, which is a major sink for oxygen produced during photosynthesis, and thus green rust played a crucial role in the oxygenation of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Only discovered in the last decade, green rust is a highly reactive iron mineral which experts hope could be used to clean up metal pollution and even radioactive waste.

Newcastle University’s Professor Simon Poulton said this latest discovery – published this month in the academic journal Geology – proved the effectiveness of green rust as an environmental cleaner.

“Because it is so reactive, green rust has hardly ever been found before in nature and never in a water system like this,” explains Professor Poulton, who led the research team involving experts from the Universities of Newcastle, Nancy, Southern Denmark, Leeds, Brussels and Kansas, and the Canadian Light Source and Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

“The discovery of green rust in Lake Matano, Indonesia, where we carried out our experiments shows for the first time what a key role it played in our ancient oceans – scavenging dissolved nickel, a key micronutrient for methanogenesis.”

Dr Sean Crowe of the University of Southern Denmark explains: “We still know relatively little about green rust but our research shows that it is likely to be much more prevalent in the environment than has previously been recognised and the role it plays in cycling elements such as nickel and other metals is significant.

“Understanding the important role it played in our past and its effectiveness at removing metals from the environment will help us to understand how we might be able to use it to clean up polluted land and water in the future.”

The high reactivity of green rust is the reason it could be so much help in cleaning up polluted sites. The rust reduces elements like chromium, uranium and selenium, significantly reducing their solubility and mobility in the environment, and in some cases absorbing them into the rust’s molecular structure.

Professor Poulton adds: “Green rust has received a lot of attention recently due to its possible role as a pollutant mediator, but it is particularly exciting to think that this may have been a natural process throughout huge periods of ancient Earth history.”

Offshore drilling ‘likely’ in Arctic, feds say

Oil exploration will probably begin in Alaskan waters this summer, according to a top U.S. official, with more lease sales likely in the next four years.

SHELL FREEZES OVER: Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, pictured above, is one of the areas where Royal Dutch Shell is expected to begin drilling for oil this year. (Photo: Mark Patsavas/National Ocean Service)

Royal Dutch Shell will win federal permits to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean this summer, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar predicted Tuesday, foreshadowing what could become a watershed event for the remote, oil-rich region.

Addressing reporters via conference call from Norway, where he’s attending an international summit on Arctic drilling, Salazar also revealed plans for two future sales of offshore oil leases in Alaska: one for the Chukchi Sea in 2016 and one for the Beaufort Sea in 2017. This is part of the Obama administration’s “all of the above” energy strategy, he said, which includes a pledge to “do everything possible to proceed safely and responsibly” and to be ready “in the event of an incident.”

By “incident,” Salazar means oil spill — the main concern of environmentalists who have spent years fighting to keep oil rigs out of Alaskan waters. Salazar says he shares that concern, acknowledging critics’ arguments that rough seas, severe weather and remote geography make the Arctic impractical for oil drilling. “I can tell you that President Obama and his administration take very seriously the complexities and unique conditions in the Arctic,” he said Tuesday. “It is a frontier.”

Nonetheless, Salazar contends Shell is committed to safety, from its updated emergency plans to a new oil-spill containment device it successfully tested Monday in Puget Sound. Along with other recent safety measures, the company has convinced Salazar it can handle a worst-case scenario like the 2010 Gulf oil spill. “I believe there will not be an oil spill,” he tells the New York Times. “If there is, I think the response capability is there to arrest the problem very quickly and minimize damage. If I were not confident that would happen, I would not let the permits go forward.”

Shell’s quest to drill off the Alaskan coast dates back to 2005, when it began leasing sections of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. It has spent $4 billion on its Arctic aspirations since then, and now that investment seems poised to pay off. While Salazar emphasized that regulators are still reviewing Shell’s applications — which seek rights to drill up to five wells in the Beaufort-Chukchi region — his confidence in the outcome suggests a sea change is in store for Alaska’s continental shelf.

Cyber Space

Use Google Now with Caution, Security Experts Say

Google Now, the smart assistant in the latest upgrade of the Android operating system, draws an uneasiness among security experts evaluating the risks the search-based feature for mobile devices brings to businesses.

Google introduced Now on Wednesday in unveiling Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at the company’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco. Now is designed to use a person’s search history, calendar, location and Google Maps to deliver useful information, such as the next bus for that appointment downtown or a weather warning on the day you plan to bike to work.

Several security experts told CSO they were concerned about Now, while acknowledging it was too early to say for sure whether there are risks to businesses. Like companies, consumers may also be uneasy with the amount of information going to Google and what the company can do with it.

Jon Oberheide, chief technology officer for mobile security vendor Duo Security, said: “I’m sure there will be opinions on both sides of the aisle: Privacy-focused users who are spooked by knowledge of Now and everyday users who are impressed and drawn to the utility of Now.”

While consumer advocates worry about privacy, corporations will be thinking about the implications of having Now on the same device an employee is using to tap a company’s web application or e-mail server. At the very least, companies will want to have control to shut off the feature.

“Google states that you must opt-in to use these services, but it is unclear whether the management APIs (application programming interfaces) provided by Google will allow centralized control of these settings,” Chester Wisniewski, security research analyst for Sophos, said.

Firefox Security Bug Not a Bug at All

A “bug” in the latest version of Firefox that exposes secure information in the browser’s New Tab window may not be a flaw at all, according to one security researcher.

The New Tab feature in Firefox 13 displays thumbnails of previously visited web pages whenever a new tab is opened in the browser. Those thumbnails include information from secure, or HTTPS, websites, too.

One Firefox user reported that he discovered information in the thumbnails from previous online banking and webmail sessions that included account numbers, balances, and subject lines, according a report in The Register. That means anyone opening up the browser in your computer could have easy access to some of your most sensitive information. It also creates a rich target for cyber criminals trying to snatch info from your computer remotely.

Mozilla has pledged to fix the problem.

The New Tab bug, though, may not be a bug at all, contends Sophos security researcher Paul Ducklin. He pointed out in a blog Friday that information from secure websites has been routinely stored in the history cache of Firefox for some time. That’s because communication from a browser to a secure website is encrypted in transit but not at either end of the communication. So if someone intercepts the information in transit, it will look like garbage to them. If they grab it from the cache, though, it won’t.

While acknowledging that the New Tab flaw is a security problem that should be fixed, the root of the problem is likely to remain, he argues. For example, anyone that has access to a computer running Firefox, or for that matter Chrome, can view everything in the cache opening it up by typing “about:cache” or “chrome://cache/.”

“So the newfound data leakage due to the thumbnails is a bit of a red herring,” Ducklin writes. “The information from which Firefox 13 builds its thumbnails has been there all along in previous Firefox versions.”

Several workarounds address the New Tab problem, but they fail to address the root problem, he maintains. They will hide the New Tab thumbs, but they won’t affect the information in the cache used to construct those thumbs.

A measure of security can be obtained by changing the privacy settings in Firefox so that the browser’s history is cleared each time software is closed, Ducklin notes. He also recommends that every time you perform a task in Firefox that involves personal identifying information, you clear the recent history in the software through its tool menu.

Legal Battle Over LinkedIn Breach Could Be Costly

LinkedIn, the professional social networking site facing a $5 million-plus lawsuit for a massive breach earlier this month, may win its impending legal battle. But victory will probably not come cheap. Legal bills mount up quickly, especially with an “aggressive” defense, which LinkedIn has promised.

Unless the suit, filed on behalf of lead plaintiff Katie Szpyrka and a potential cast of millions of other coplaintiffs, is settled quickly and quietly, it is likely to provide regular public reminders, for months or possibly years, of what happened and why. That, as marketing people say, is not good for “brand identity.”

And that encryption weakness is what the lawsuit cites repeatedly in its seven allegations, including violation of California business and professional code; violations of California civil code; breach of contract; breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing; breach of implied contracts; negligence; and negligence per se.

Szpyrka, listed on LinkedIn as a senior associate at the Chicago offices of UGL Equis, a global real estate firm focused on business clients, is represented by Sean P. Reis of Edelson McGuire LLP, a law firm in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. The suit is seeking certification as a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all LinkedIn users compromised by the hack.

The suit doesn’t allege violations of any specific cybersecurity law, but complains that the company violated its own privacy policy, which asserts that it will, “safeguard its users sensitive PII (personally identifiable information), specifically that: ‘All information you provide will be protected with industry standard protocols and technology.'”

By its own admission, LinkedIn was not in compliance with the industry standard, which is to “salt” the hashes — merge the hashed passwords with another combination and then hash them for a second time.

LinkedIn, however, invokes the classic defense in data breach cases to contend the suit is “without merit.”

LinkedIn spokeswoman Erin O’Harra told Cameron Scott of the IDG News Service: “No member account has been breached as a result of the incident, and we have no reason to believe that any LinkedIn member has been injured. Therefore, it appears that these threats are driven by lawyers looking to take advantage of the situation.”

So, now that the dueling sound bites have been issued, how vulnerable is LinkedIn really?

The likelihood is, not very much. The courts have so far declined to award damages to plaintiffs who cannot prove actual damages. Legal experts viewing a string of lawsuits, also in California, over breaches of personal medical information, told CSO in April that judges are well aware that 100-percent security on the Internet simply does not exist, due to the rapidity and sophistication of attacks.

How to maintain your relationships and keep prepping when the ‘better half ‘ thinks you’re nuts…….

Quite a few preppers have had to deal with the strain on a relationship from one-sided prepping commitment. Often one person in a relationship does not share the zeal, the sense of urgency that drives the other partner to prep vigorously. Sometimes the other partner does not believe in the need to prepare for a major disaster at all. Many of us have had to deal with that very situation. It has been suggested on this blog and others that the prepper should make every attempt to get the ‘other half ‘ involved. I think that’s sound advice though I may have come to that conclusion a bit too late.

Firstly, you may believe in an imminent polar shift disaster, super tornadoes, coming comet/asteroid impact, a New World Government takeover and ensuing social enslavement, the total Collapse of the U.S. Government, world monetary collapse and world wide depression, global warming, global cooling, ad infinitum. There is an element of reality in all of them. Rather than trying to convince your partner that such is the case, try pushing the more comprehensible rather than the extreme.

Such beliefs, right or wrong, are hard for the average person to embrace. So hedge a little… …you are mainly preparing for natural disaster, economic depression and possibly a temporary loss of services such as power and water, civil upheaval (rioting etc.). These are ‘reasonable’ and foreseeable crises which most people (and your ‘better half’) can agree are possible. Acquire some videos on the tsunami in Indonesia, the flooding and rioting at Katrina, the earthquake generated devastation of Haiti. Make it real for your spouse/sig-other.

Next involve them in prep related activities. What are their interests? Do they love to cook? Experiment with dutch oven or solar oven cooking. Do they like to garden or have they always wanted to garden. Encourage him/her to start or enlarge a garden. Get involved as much as you can. Expand the gardening activity to include composting and canning. You can learn to can together. Get it? Together. Mutually shared activities (prepping related) and interests.

Bring the other half into your related hobbies such as shooting, hunting, fishing, ham radio, etc. Take CPR classes together. Maybe even EMT courses. Go camping. Teach them primitive fire making techniques and make it fun. I showed my wife how to make primitive powered traps and she really got a kick out of it. Naturally I taught her to look for sign and scat so she could site her traps if necessary. She now has a basic capability (and confidence) to make traps to acquire food if needed. I taught her how to track someone with the reasoning that one of the grandkids could get lost when we’re camping. She took an immediate and avid interest. Now she at least has the rudiments of tracking and interpreting sign at her disposal. Could come in handy in the event of TEOTWAWKI.

Often the non-prepping wife/girlfriend or husband/boyfriend tolerates a certain amount of disaster preparations. Bur occasionally, the ‘crazed’ prepper spouse/significant-other drives them over the brink.

I’m afraid I’ve driven MrsSurvivorDan over the precipice. It’s not that I did anything different or on a grander scale than I have ever done heretofore. It is merely that the cumulative effect has driven her ‘sane’. Sometimes your loved one has a different vision and you can’t change them. You can’t make them see the ‘wisdom’ of your parsimonious, TEOTWAWKI focused lifestyle as you make adjustments prior to what you see as an inevitable Collapse. She says that she thinks I’m a good man but a little ‘nuts’. And indeed, I am a little nuts, I just think the Collapse is coming. Being a nut doesn’t make me wrong.

How to Prepare for Emergency Situations Using Your Coupons

Most emergency preparedness experts recommend having enough food, water, and supplies to last at least two weeks in the case of a disaster. It can be difficult to find the money to set aside enough to see your family through a fourteen day period, however. With coupons, you can easily find great deals on the things that you need for your emergency supplies without making a big dent in your regular monthly budget.

Start With the Basics

Water, food, and medical supplies are all important to have on hand. But which of these items should you begin purchasing and storing first? When you don’t have a lot of extra money to spend, you will want to start with the basics and purchase items when they are on sale. By using a coupon for an item that is already at a reduced price, you stock up on the things that you need at a much faster rate than buying items at full price.

According to the website Ready.Gov, you need the following on hand:

· One gallon of water per person, per day.
· Enough food for each person, preferably dried or canned foods.
· Pliers, scissors, and other common tools.
· Medical supplies, such as bandages, prescription medications, and over the counter medicines for pain, fever, and minor injury.
· Batteries and a battery powered radio.

You can find coupons for most common household goods, such as canned food, chlorine bleach, and batteries both through local sources and online. Your Sunday newspaper is a great place to find coupons on extra household supplies that you can store for emergencies. For example, some things that you may not think of, like toothpaste, asprin, and plastic bags can be purchased using a coupon from your newspaper.

Wildfire Survival Tips

Whether you live in or visit a densely wooded area that is susceptible to wildfires, it is extremely important to understand the risks and causes of these unfortunate and often preventable disasters. Wildfires are very dangerous and can rip through acres of land in no time at all, leaving nothing but ashes behind. This is why you must take action as soon as a wildfire is reported near you. If you would like to know how to survive a wildfire, take some time to look over the following wildfire survival tips.

Have a Plan

Many people make their homes in heavily wooded areas, while others camp, hunt, or hike these areas on a regular basis. Regardless if you live in or visit these areas for sport or leisure, you should always have a plan in place in case a wildfire happens to strike. If your home is in a wildfire-prone area, make sure your family has an emergency evacuation plan. You should also make arrangements for temporary housing, as this will be necessary if you need to evacuate. The same goes for visitors (hunters, campers, etc.) of heavily wooded areas. Before visiting, you should research the area so you are familiar with it and are prepared if there happens to be a wildfire.

Take Some Precautions

Both residents and visitors alike also need to understand that most wildfires can be prevented by taking some easy precautions. Do not burn carelessly or start fires near dry brush or grasslands, especially when rain has been scarce. Also, you should always have a water supply nearby in case a fire happens to get out of control. These simple measures can usually prevent a fire from spreading and growing into something more disastrous. It is good to keep in mind though, that some wildfires start as the result of a lightning strike and therefore cannot be prevented by man.

Evacuate

Should a wildfire be reported in your area, you may be ordered to evacuate immediately. Be sure to choose an evacuation route that leads away, not into, the fire hazard. If you encounter smoke while in your vehicle, drive slowly with your lights on. Roll up windows and close all air vents to keep smoke out. When you reach your safe haven, stay there and do not return to your property until you have received the okay to do so.

‘Preppers’ stock up on guns’n’gear as financial doom looms

With political instability spreading across the globe and fears of more Fukushima-style nuclear disasters, the number of doomsday believers is on the rise. But now it’s also the struggling global economy that’s increasingly making people stock up on basic neccessities. RT’s Anastasia Churkina met some Americans, who are ready for the worst.
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Whistle Blowers

Fast and Furious whistleblowers now supervised by ATF manager who allegedly threatened retaliation

(CBS News) Two Fast and Furious whistleblowers have reportedly been placed under the supervision of an ATF official who allegedly threatened to “take them down.”

That’s according to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) who have asked the Inspector General to immediately investigate.

When the ATF whistleblowers, Special Agents John Dodson and Pete Forcelli, went public last year, Scot Thomasson headed up ATF Public Affairs. According to an eyewitness, Thomasson stated “We need to get whatever dirt we can on these guys (whistleblowers) and take them down.” Now, Grassley and Issa say the agents have been put under the charge of ATF’s Scot Thomasson who is Division Chief of the Firearms Operations Unit.

Thomasson was also allegedly heard to have said “ATF needs to f__k these guys.” And when asked if the whistleblower allegations were true, Thomasson purportedly said he didn’t know and didn’t care. The accounts are contained in a May 3, 2012 House Oversight memo attached to Congress’ draft contempt report against Attorney General Eric Holder.

U.N. Whistleblowers Muted and Victimized

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2012 (IPS) – A landmark case filed against U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon by a former employee has spotlighted the dangers of whistle-blowing inside the U.N. exposing a faulty accountability system.

In 2007 James Wasserstrom, an ex American diplomat, drew attention to suspected cases of corruption among top U.N. officials of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Unwarranted searches of his flat and car ensued and his career as a U.N. employee came to an end.

Currently U.N. officials have recourse to an anti-corruption watchdog titled the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), an ethics office and a whistle-blowing protection policy should they wish to file a complaint or claim.

But these accountability mechanisms were deemed “fundamentally flawed” by the dispute tribunal, an independent adjudicator introduced in 2009, which has ruled in Wassertrom’s favor.

Wassertrom took issue with U.N. sponsored conduct in Kosovo and found evidence to suggest that two senior officials might have been bribed to approve the construction of a coal-fired power plant and mine.

He made his suspicions known to the OIOS and believes that his claims were leaked to the officials he sought to implicate, putting him at risk of reprisals.

The ethics office found a clear case of retaliation by senior U.N. officials implicated in Wasserstrom’s corruption claims, but the OIOS rejected claims of retaliatory intent and tempered its judgment concluding that the conduct of officials “appeared to be excessive”.

According to the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a watchdog organization in Washington, of 297 cases Wasserstrom’s case was only the second time in six years that the ethics office had fully sided with a whistleblower complaining of retaliation whilst seeking to expose misconduct within the U.N.

Numerous cases have been documented in independent media reports, and a recent article in the Guardian gave details of three further whistleblowers that saw their claims rejected and careers terminated.

An article in Foreign Policy similarly documents the case of Georges Tadonki who was sacked amid claims that his attempts to warn his seniors of the impending threat of cholera has been neglected prior to the countrywide outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2009.

In the recent ruling of the tribunal, Judge Goolam Meeran was scathing in his rebuke of the conduct of a global institution renowned for the promotion human rights, for having “condoned humiliating and degrading treatment of a member of its own staff”. Ban is yet to respond to the judgment. Journalist Matthew Lee of Inner City Press raised the issue in a U.N. noon briefing Jun. 25, but Ban’s spokesmen Martin Nesirky declined to comment.

The Guardian newspaper received an email from Nesirky stating, “The U.N. Dispute Tribunal issued a judgment on liability in the case of Mr Wasserstrom, but has not yet ruled on compensation and remedies. In that sense, the matter is still open. The United Nations Secretariat is studying the judgment and, in keeping with its policy on ongoing cases, is not in a position to provide any comment now.

Articles of Interest

A global strategy to combat foot-and-mouth disease must be based on collective action and solid commitments from all countries, the U.N. food agency says.

Foot-and-mouth disease, which affects all cloven-hoofed animals including sheep, goats, cattle, buffalo and pigs, causes serious production losses and can be fatal, particularly to younger animals.

“Recent FMD outbreaks around the globe demonstrate that animal diseases have no boundaries, can have a devastating impact and require a global response,” Hiroyuki Konuma, Food and Agriculture Organization regional representative for Asia and the Pacific, said.

He was addressing the opening session of a foot-and-mouth disease conference in Bangkok Wednesday.

While the disease does not directly affect humans, the FAO cited the negative impact it has on poor farmers whose livelihoods often depend on just a few animals, the loss of which can lead to hunger and economic ruin.

The agency estimates a $5 billion global annual cost of the disease in terms of production losses and the need for prevention by vaccination.

It cited the effort against another cattle disease, rinderpest, as evidence of the effectiveness of cooperation.

“The successful eradication of rinderpest, a joint effort by scientists, governments, donors, veterinarians and farmers, clearly shows that we can reduce and even eliminate the threat of major diseases,” the FAO’s chief veterinary officer, Juan Lubroth, said in a statement.

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A lab-on-a-chip technology that measures trace amounts of air contaminants in homes was successfully field-tested by researchers at the University of Michigan. Even in the presence of 50 other indoor air contaminants, the U-M-built microsystem found levels of the targeted contaminant so low that it would be analogous to finding a particular silver dollar in a roll stretching from Detroit to Salt Lake City.

“This is the first (known) study of its kind,” said Ted Zellers, professor in the U-M School of Public Health and the Department of Chemistry, and project director.

“Most lab-on-a-chip technologies are used for biomedical analysis of liquids,” Zellers said. “Our technology is designed for monitoring contaminants in the air, and this groundbreaking study is the first to prove that it can work outside the laboratory in real-life applications.”

The applications are potentially limitless because the device, called a microfabricated gas chromatograph, can be tailored to detect any contaminants, Zellers said. For instance, the team is adapting the same technology to detect certain industrial chemicals in the breath and saliva of exposed workers, biomarkers of cancer and other chronic disease, and markers of explosives for airport screening applications.

The Department of Defense contracted the U-M team to adapt and test two prototypes devices in homes near Utah’s Hill Air Force Base to measure indoor concentrations of trichloroethylene, or TCE. TCE was used on military bases until the 1970s, and improper disposal caused TCE to become a pervasive groundwater contaminant that can seep into homes above plumes.

“The core microfabricated silicon chips, when stacked, are roughly the size of a wristwatch,” Zellers said. They require less power and can be made smaller and less expensively than traditionally manufactured counterparts.

The microsystem was designed and built by faculty and students affiliated with the Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSensing and Systems in the College of Engineering.

Zellers said the group is currently negotiating with several companies interested in commercializing the technology.

A series of articles describing the results appeared this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Co-authors include Sun Kyu Kim, Hungwei Chang, and Jonathan Bryant-Genevier, of U-M; David Burris of IST, Inc., and Kyle Gorder and Erik Dettenmeier of Hill Air Force Base.

What does the term “natural flavors” really mean? Could it be that the term “natural flavors” includes genetically modified, pesticide-laden food? There are also plenty of “food products” on the shelves that read “all natural” on the label, but they still contain large amounts of synthetic, laboratory-concocted food agents, many of which cause diseases and disorders. So how much more confusing can it get to simply shop for food that doesn’t kill you slowly?

Exactly who makes the rules about terms put on labels? You better hope it doesn’t all fall in the hands of the FDA, the same organization responsible for allowing genetically modified food to exist and be sold completely undercover ever since its inception. And does natural flavoring include the migraine headache monster monosodium glutamate? Also, can “natural flavoring” include bugs that are ground up to turn your food into some “happy” colors that help you celebrate some birthday or big event? One final question: could “natural flavoring” mean the food contains meat, even though it’s a vegetarian or vegan product?

Maybe “natural flavoring” means it’s not natural at all, instead, some food scientists were paid millions to create un-natural, immune system “crippling” foods, drinks, candies and medicine, just to make some extra money off of your sickness. There’s a point where conspiracy theory bleeds over into the real world of unnatural food and medicine, where paranoia of cancer scams and epidemics spill over into actual statistics (United States), the ones which include every other man and every third women in the most “powerful country in the world.”

MSG, Aspartame and bugs in your food are all considered “natural flavors” and “natural colors”

Do you know what autolyzed yeast extract really is? It’s MSG. Do you know what hydrolyzed soy protein (also MSG) does to your body? Have you thought about eating some beetles lately, or do you only do that when you have cupcakes, popsicles, birthday cake and cough medicine?

Has your doctor discussed with you the fact that your ingestion of artificial sweeteners may be the main cause of your muscle aches, headaches, irritable bowels and even fibromyalgia? Do allopathic doctors, surgeons and oncologists in America have to take even one single class in college on nutrition? No, they don’t. What about continuing education to keep up with the latest food toxins? Nope!

Who regulates whether or not something qualifies as a “natural flavor?” Who does inspections at factories and laboratories, or is that left up to the manufacturer, much like the way it’s up to vaccine manufacturers to report adverse effects? When the police themselves are crooks, there’s no “policing” of the crimes they are committing. In fact, the whole differentiation of GMO & artificial from Natural & Organic has become a murky mess. The line of distinction between foods labeled “all natural” and cancer causing food is not only blurred, it barely exists.

First of all, regulations for the word “natural” only apply to flavors; anywhere else you find it on food packaging means absolutely nothing regarding quality. Secondly, the FDA definition of “natural flavors” and “natural flavoring” allows for the substance to be extracted from plant or animal “matter.” So when you buy something that’s organic, vegetarian, or vegan, and it has “natural flavoring,” you could be eating a pig, cow, turkey, chicken, or lamb which was shot up with growth hormones, fed GMO pesticide-laden corn and grain – probably mixed with other animals of it’s same breed, then shot up with antibiotics due to infections and diseases from living in confined quarters on slats covered in feces.

Your enemy wears a friendly mask

Gary Reineccius, a professor in the Department of Food Science & Nutrition at the University of Minnesota has a tricky explanation for all you researchers. He convinces you to think more about the practical difference between “natural flavoring” and artificial flavoring, which is an angle that might make you think he’s looking out for your best interest, but then he contends that the “flavorist” creating any artificial flavoring could never achieve the same “desired flavor,” and therefore, if a consumer “purchases an apple beverage that contains an artificial flavor, he/she will ingest the same primary chemicals that he/she would take in if he/she had chosen a naturally flavored apple beverage. What a complete farce!

Of course, this makes no sense at all, but it’s one of those resources out there to throw consumers off track who have the energy and the “gumption” to look up the difference online. Mr. Reineccius, the illustrious professor, goes on to tell you more lies. Next he informs you that, “Artificial flavorings are simpler in composition and potentially safer because only safety-tested components are utilized.” Really, so where are all the great results from the GMO tests they’ve run on humans?

MSG is the grim reaper of food additives

Monosodium Glutamate is a neurotoxin that can be legally hidden from you and/or be labeled “natural flavors” in the ingredients list. MSG is not a natural flavor – in fact, it can cause brain lesions, neuro-endocrine disorders, and neurodegenerative disease in humans, but you won’t hear any doctors of Western Medicine mentioning that at your next extreme migraine emergency visit. There are more than 25 names for MSG, so sometimes you find it spread out a little, just in case the manufacturer gets “checked out” by anyone other than the FDA.

The FDA does not require that any source of MSG be identified. This means that the FDA code does not require that “constituents” of an ingredient be disclosed to the consumer. Yet in hundreds of studies around the world, scientists are creating obese mice using MSG because it triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. This is what the FDA calls natural. There’s even a name for the fat rodents that eat this “Natural Flavor” additive: they’re called “MSG-Treated Rats.”

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American food supply 50 years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger doses to processed meals, soups, chips, and fast foods. The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to food.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2012 (IPS) – A landmark case filed against U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon by a former employee has spotlighted the dangers of whistle-blowing inside the U.N. exposing a faulty accountability system.

In 2007 James Wasserstrom, an ex American diplomat, drew attention to suspected cases of corruption among top U.N. officials of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Unwarranted searches of his flat and car ensued and his career as a U.N. employee came to an end.

Currently U.N. officials have recourse to an anti-corruption watchdog titled the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), an ethics office and a whistle-blowing protection policy should they wish to file a complaint or claim.

But these accountability mechanisms were deemed “fundamentally flawed” by the dispute tribunal, an independent adjudicator introduced in 2009, which has ruled in Wassertrom’s favor.

Wassertrom took issue with U.N. sponsored conduct in Kosovo and found evidence to suggest that two senior officials might have been bribed to approve the construction of a coal-fired power plant and mine.

He made his suspicions known to the OIOS and believes that his claims were leaked to the officials he sought to implicate, putting him at risk of reprisals.

The ethics office found a clear case of retaliation by senior U.N. officials implicated in Wasserstrom’s corruption claims, but the OIOS rejected claims of retaliatory intent and tempered its judgment concluding that the conduct of officials “appeared to be excessive”.

According to the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a watchdog organization in Washington, of 297 cases Wasserstrom’s case was only the second time in six years that the ethics office had fully sided with a whistleblower complaining of retaliation whilst seeking to expose misconduct within the U.N.

Numerous cases have been documented in independent media reports, and a recent article in the Guardian gave details of three further whistleblowers that saw their claims rejected and careers terminated.

An article in Foreign Policy similarly documents the case of Georges Tadonki who was sacked amid claims that his attempts to warn his seniors of the impending threat of cholera has been neglected prior to the countrywide outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2009.

In the recent ruling of the tribunal, Judge Goolam Meeran was scathing in his rebuke of the conduct of a global institution renowned for the promotion human rights, for having “condoned humiliating and degrading treatment of a member of its own staff”. Ban is yet to respond to the judgment. Journalist Matthew Lee of Inner City Press raised the issue in a U.N. noon briefing Jun. 25, but Ban’s spokesmen Martin Nesirky declined to comment.

The Guardian newspaper received an email from Nesirky stating, “The U.N. Dispute Tribunal issued a judgment on liability in the case of Mr Wasserstrom, but has not yet ruled on compensation and remedies. In that sense, the matter is still open. The United Nations Secretariat is studying the judgment and, in keeping with its policy on ongoing cases, is not in a position to provide any comment now.

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